It’s Christmas time all over the world, it’s Christmas here at home. The church bells chime wherever we roam! Though the customs might change, and the language is strange, this appeal we feel is real! (-Sammy Davis Jr)
 |
| Swarovski Christmas tree in the Zurich main train station (Zurich HB) |
We’ve been here for about four months and are celebrating our first Christmas here in Switzerland. Many of you have asked me about Christmas in Switzerland and while the simple answer is that Christmas is Christmas, there are several differences I’ve noticed in the way people celebrate! First, since there is no Thanksgiving, there is no feeling that one needs to wait for a certain date to start feeling festive. The city starts decorating in mid-November and has the official tree light up towards the end of the month. The stores had Christmas items out well before Halloween (similar to the United States!), It seems like most of the holiday markets were also up and open by the last week of November as well.
And while things seem to get kicked off a little earlier (with good reason, you’ll see why when I talk about Santa below) there isn’t a big push for buy,buy,buy. The stores were just as crowded on shopping days as they were on any other shopping days. Maybe the weekend right before Christmas will be different? It just doesn’t get as “crazy” around the holidays here. Oh, and it’s totally okay to say Merry Christmas.
You are probably wondering what that creepy dementor looking guy is doing in my post about Christmas. If you follow me on instaram, you have seen this picture already and you will know that that is Schmutzli. Schmutzli is Santa’s “helper” who goes around with Santa (who is called Samichlaus, not Santa) and his job is to punish the bad children. Many Swiss children are very scared of being kidnapped by Schmutzli if they are bad. Samichlaus visits on December 6th and the children are supposed to recite a poem or song for him and tell him how good they were this year. He gives the children a bag of nuts, fruit and candy and sometimes small toys, too.
Our Samichlaus visited at a friends house on the evening of December 5th and brought the kids each a little toy and some candy. He was very friendly and tried not to be scary since all three of our kids are preschoolers. He told the kids Schmutzli was his friend, and didn’t try to scare the children with him whatsoever, although I admit he was super creepy in my opinion! Carter wasn’t scared at all and thought Schmutzli was supposed to be a witch since he had a broomstick!
On the other hand, it is possible to find a “jolly” Santa Claus to visit with if you look. We saw him at the shopping center with the Coke pop-up shop and of course we went to visit Santa’s mountain house near Montreux on Thanksgiving! We also had a visit with Santa at the American Women’s Club here in Zurich.
Another big difference is the Christmas tree. Most people here put their trees up to decorate on Christmas Eve only and then keep them up through January 6th. They didn’t even start selling live trees in the stores near me until this past weekend! I am used to putting my tree up right after Thanksgiving so we can enjoy it all month, but it was so hard to find a real tree I ended up buying my first ever fake tree.
Of course the Holiday Markets are very popular here (and other parts of Europe as well) with plenty of stalls full of gifts to buy, food and mulled wine! A popular Christmas cookie is a cinnamon star cookie (Zimtsterne) which is made with almond flour and therefore has a very nutty flavor.
More info and pictures about Swiss Christmas fun coming soon on the blog!
Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!
#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }
